Ju’Riese Colón is the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Center for SafeSport with a professional background in children’s safety policy and education. She spoke at the USEF Annual Meeting about participant protection and SafeSport in the equestrian community. Here are five takeaways from her presentation. 1. The equestrian community has become a leader in participant protection efforts. The U.S. Center for SafeSport was designated in 2017 as the nation’s safe sport...

Sydney Moriarty is a lifelong hunter/jumper rider and a second-year medical student at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine. In 2021, she graduated with a B.S. in Clinical Neuroscience from Virginia Tech, where she worked at the Helmet Lab assisting on the Equestrian STAR helmet rating project . Moriarty gave a presentation on the history, future, and current research around equestrian helmets, body protectors, and air vests. Here are five key takeaways from her presentation: 1....

Ellen Ahearn and Eric Markell at Badminton. We became involved in the sport of eventing when our daughter, Alexandra Ahearn, became an eventer. She started in Michele Pestl’s program in Renton, WA on an older horse named Sir Frederick. After a couple of years, it was clear that Alex had advanced as a rider to the point she needed a younger, more vibrant horse. So, off Michele and Ellen went to Munich, Germany, where we were fortunate enough to locate and purchase Mai Baum at the...

Jane Hamlin My journey as a judge has led me from northern New England all around the world, including judging at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. It’s been an exciting ride starting when two friends and I traveled down monthly to the New England Dressage Association dressage judges’ program. This was prior to the USDF “L” program. We had the good fortune to spend a weekend a month for nine months learning from different judges before taking our final exam to become a...

Lexington, Ky. – US Equestrian is pleased to announce the athlete/horse combinations that will represent the United States at the 2022 FEI Endurance World Championship, scheduled to take place February 25, 2023, at Butheeb, United Arab Emirates. The following combinations will represent the U.S. Endurance Team and are listed in alphabetical order: Marissa Bartmann (La Plata, N.M.) and RGS Rollo Ze Monarch, a 2010 Arabian gelding owned by Jessica DiCamillo Karen Binns-DiCamillo (Las...

Alex Waldrop, the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), shared U.S. horse racing’s history and recapped some of the challenges that horse racing has faced in the past 15 years. The challenges affected horse racing’s social license to operate and required earnest changes to improve horse welfare. “An old adage comes to mind: ‘If you can’t be a good example, you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.’...

USEF Chief of Sport David O’Connor, University of Kentucky Equine Science professor and member of the FEI Equine Ethics and Welfare Commission, Dr. Camie Heleski, and Chief Executive of World Horse Welfare, Roly Owers, spoke to the USEF Annual Meeting about equestrian sport and the social license to operate. Here are five takeaways from their presentation. 1. Social license to operate is an unofficial but essential piece of the puzzle. Owers describes social license to operate as...

Lexington, Ky. – US Equestrian is pleased to announce that Salvino, Betsy Juliano LLC’s 2007 Hanoverian stallion, was voted the 2022 International Horse of the Year and Cannon Creek, the Wheeler family’s 2011 Holsteiner gelding, was voted the 2022 National Horse of the Year by the USEF membership. Salvino and Cannon Creek were honored during the SmartPak/USEF Horse of the Year Awards Dinner on Saturday, January 14. International Horse of the Year Salvino, 2022 USEF...

Lexington, Ky. - US Equestrian President Tom O’Mara and CEO Bill Moroney spoke during the General Session presentation to members and staff on January 13 th at the US Equestrian Annual Meeting. They looked back at progress made by US Equestrian in 2022 and laid out three priorities for 2023 with the theme of Working Together for Our Future. “Each year, we take this time to review our progress from the prior year, reassess where we stand, and establish the key goals and strategies...

Lexington, Ky. – US Equestrian congratulates 2022 International Equestrian of the Year Adrienne Lyle and 2022 National Equestrian of the Year Hunt Tosh. Lyle and Tosh were nominated as Equestrians of Honor and selected by US Equestrian member voting in December. Both Equestrians of the Year were honored at the 2023 Pegasus Awards Dinner at the USEF Annual Meeting in Lexington, Ky., on Jan. 12. Adrienne Lyle. ©Matt Turer/US Equestrian International Equestrian of the Year –...